Combined relief and intaglio printing method and machine



J. KOSZUL July 2', 1968 COMBINED RELIEF AND IN'I'AGLIO PRINTING METHOD AND MACHINE Filed March 5, 1965 United States Patent 5 Claims. 61. 101-155 The present invention relates to intaglio printing machines and methods, and to the printed supports obtained with said methods and machines.

For the intaglio printing of a document or other support, use is made of a plate (this term being meant to include not only a plate proper but any other piece having a smooth surface, such as a sheet or a shell), preferably of a metal, provided with at least one hollow located below the plate surface. At least that portion of this plate provided with this hollow is coated with an ink of a type usual for intaglio printing in such manner that this ink penetrates into said hollow. The inked surface is wiped so as to leave on the plate only the ink located in said hollow and the plate thus inked and wiped is applied against the support to be printed, which is generally a sheet of paper interposed between said surface and a presser cylinder, thus transferring to said support the ink occupying the recess of the plate. Transfer of the ink present in the recess of the plate may also be performed indirectly, through'a cylinder provided with a flexible coating and disposed between the plate and the support which is to be printed.

The chief object of the present invention is to provide a method and a machine for intaglio printing which are better adapted to meet the requirements of practice than those known up to this time, especially concerning the difficulty of counterfeiting and the possibility of obtaining different effects from a given engraved design.

The invention is more especially adapted to the case Where, after wiping of the plate but before its application against the support to be printed, at least a portion of the plate surface is coated with ink of the relief printing type, i.e. ink which is retained only by the portions of the plate above the hollows thereof.

The invention consists chiefly in filling with intaglio printing ink only a portion of the area of said hollow While leaving the remainder of said hollow area empty and in applying onto at least the portion of the outer surface of the plate surrounding said remainder of the area of said hollow a complementary relief printing ink.

The hollows of the plate which have not been filled with intaglio printing ink still remain empty of ink during the complementary inking, but they are surrounded by portions covered with relief printing ink, which does not penetrate into said hollows.

This method permits of obtaining in negative on the printed support the portion of the intaglio design which has not been filled wtih ink, this portion appearing upon a continuous background coated with relief printing ink.

The complementary inking may be limited so as exactly to surround the portion of the area of the hollow which has not been filled with intaglio printing ink, which permits of obtaining prints of a very curious appearance and dificult to imitate.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will be hereinafter described with reference to the appended drawings, given merely by way of example, and in which:

FIG. 1 diagrammatically shows an intaglio printing machine, according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 diagrammatically shows a portion of said machine on an enlarged scale;

3,39%,631 Patented July 2, 1968 ICC FIG. 3 represents a portion of this machine arranged according to a modification;

FIGS. 4 and 5 show, respectively, in plan view and in section view on the line VV of FIG. 4, a portion of a document printed according to the present invention, and corresponding to the embodiment of FIG. 2;

FIGS. 6 and 7 show, respectively, in plan view and in section on the line VIVI of FIG. 6, a portion of a document printed according to the modification illustrated by FIG. 3.

The present invention may be used for the printing of documents such as checks, bank-notes, postage stamps, bonds and the like.

The printing machine comprises a rotary cylinder 1 (FIG. 1) fitted with thin linings 2 (hereinafter called plates) of copper, either chromium plated or not, nickel, a plastic material, etc., engraved in hollow to form the design to be reproduced by printing, at least one inking cylinder 3 the surface of which is cut in accordance with the areas of plate 2 to be inked (four such inking cylinders 3 are shown in FIG. 1), inking means 4 cooperating with each inking cylinder 3, a wiping cylinder 5 provided with a brush 6 and a scraper 7, a printing cylinder 8, means 9 for feeding blank sheets to be printed to said printing cylinder 8 and means 1 for removing the printed documents.

The machine further comprises, although FIG. 1 does not show them, means for strongly applying inking cylinders 3, wiping cylinder 5 and printing cylinder 8 against plates 2 carried by cylinder 1, means for rotating cylinder 1 in one direction and inking and printing cylinders 3 and 8 in the opposed direction with equal respective peripheral speeds, and means for driving wiping cylinder 5 in the same direction as cylinder 1.

The operation of this machine is as follows:

During the rotation of cylinder 1, plates 2 successively pass the inking cylinder 3, so as to coat with ink some portions of said plates by filling the hollows thereof. Then the plates pass opposite wiping cylinder 5, which removes any ink deposited outside of the hollows. Finally plates 2 pass printing cylinder 8, so as to transfer to the sheet to be printed the inked design formed in the hollows of said plates 2.

Such a machine permits of obtaining clear, fine prints.

It has already been proposed to perform a supplementary inking between the wiping step and the printing step. For this purpose, there is provided, in contact with cylinder I, at least one supplementary inking cylinder 11, provided with suitable inking means 12 and located between wiping cylinder 5 and printing cylinder 8.

But, up to now, said supplementary printing was effected so as to form a design having no relation with that obtained by the intaglio printing. In other words, the hollows of plate 2 were entirely filled with an intaglio printing ink before the wiping operation and the supplementary inking was performed on a smooth wiped surface having no relation with the hollows. This known method therefore consisted in applying to the printed support a design printed according to the intaglio method and another design entirely independent of the first one and obtained by relief printing.

On the contrary, the present invention permits of combining the two printing operations, to wit the intaglio printing operation and the relief printing operation for obtaining new and original results.

For this purpose, the intaglio inking means are designed to fill only portions of the areas of the hollows of plate 2 with intaglio printing ink, the remainders of said areas being left empty and at least the portions of the surface of plate 2 adjoining said remainders of the hollow areas are coated with a relief printing ink.

FIG. 2 illustrates a first embodiment of the present invention.

As visible on this figure, plate 2, provided with a hollow 13, has only a portion of the length of the hollow filled with the intaglio printing ink 14. Thus as shown in FIG. 2, there are three notches filled with ink 14 and there are two notches which are empty; such notches correspond to sections at five different places of the hollow 13 forming the S design, the ink being disposed in a portion of the length of the overall design.

The surface of cylinder 11 which serves to apply relief printing ink on plate 2 is cut in such manner as to coat with said relief printing ink only the portion of the surface of plate 2 adjoining the portions of hollows 13 which are empty of intaglio printing ink, said portions being limited by the line 16 of plate 2. The nature of ink 15 and also the manner in which it is applied on plate 2 (taking into account the composition of the surface of cylinder 11, generally rubber or a plastic material, and also the pressure with which it is applied against plate 2) are such that said ink 15 does not penetrate into the portions of hollows 13 which have been left empty.

Thus, as seen in FIGS. 4 and 5, when plate 2 is pressed against the support 17 to be printed, which is generally a sheet of paper, the ink 14 housed in a part of the length of the hollow of plate 2 and the ink 15 applied on the surface of plate 2 by clyinder 11 are transferred to support 17 respectively as a design 19 in relief, of the intaglio ink, and as a layer of relief printing ink 15 in which is reserved an empty space 20 corresponding to a negative of a portion of the intaglio design. If these two portions 19 and 20 belong to the same design, as shown by FIG. 4, they adjoin each other along a line 18 corresponding to the line 16 of plate 2. This produces surprising visual ef fects which are as a rule very pleasant in aspect and, anyway, are very difficult to imitate, especially when the design consists of a great number of lines, narrow and close together. As a matter of fact, the continuity between the portions of the design is perfect since these two portions correspond to the same engraving.

FIGS. 3, 6 and 7 illustrate a modification according to which the supplementary inking extends to zones previously inked by the intaglio method. In this case there is no modification concerning the negative reproduction of the design, visible at 20 on FIGS. 6 and 7. But the portions 19 of the intaglio design are visible on a background 15 obtained with relief printing ink.

Of course, it is possible to use on the same support the three types of reproduction, to wit in negative, in direct positive and in positive on a background of relief printing ink. It is also possible to vary the colors or shades of inks 14 and 15 and also of supports 17, which permits many combinations.

The additional ink coated on the plates after wiping thereof may be a delible ink or again an ink of a composition such that its authenticity can be shown by suitable means (reagent, heat, etc.).

In this case, it may be advantageous to limit the complementary inking to regions of reduced area of the plates corresponding, on the printed supports, to spaces intended to receive indications which must not be falsified by erasure. Such indications are for instance indications of sums of money, of identification numerals of the beneficiaries on bank checks, money orders, lottery tickets, of bank-notes, bonds, passports, identification papers and so on.

Such areas may be left blank or inked before their wiping.

In all cases the areas which contain hollows empty of intaglio printing ink and on which a complementary inking is applied (which areas may either occupy only a portion of the surface which has not received said intaglio inking or on the contrary occupy the whole of this surface) may have reduced areas of well defined forms, and not only that of rectangles intended to receive inscriptions,

but also that of designs such as numbers or other printing characters.

In the last case, it SUfllCCS for instance to provide about cylinder 11 a layer of a soft substance 21, as shown in dotted lines on FIG. 2, and then of reproducing the designs in question upon this layer, in particular by applying thereon numbering stamping devices 22 carried by a rotary cylinder 23 and inked in any suitable manner.

of course the surface of wiping cylinder 5 must be compatible both with the fat inks 14 and with the complementary inks 15, either lean or not. In many cases, for instance, it is advantageous to provide this cylinder 5 with a lining of polytetra-fiuoroethylene.

It should be noted that the fineness and sharpness of the intaglio printed designs are never altered, the ink 14 coming from the hollows 13 of plates 2 being always above the surface of the printed support and in particular above the additional ink 15 if both types of inks are superimposed.

Of course, the plates 2 might be of flat shape instead of being cylindrical. In a likewise manner the inking and the wiping might be performed through means other than rollers, for instance by means of stamping devices, of strips (of paper, metal, textile material, plastic material and so on) or even of scraping means which may possibly perform both the inking and the wiping.

In general, while the above description discloses what is deemed to be a practical and efficient embodiment of the present invention, said invention is not limited thereto as there might be changes made in the arrangement, disposition and form of the parts without departing from the principle of the invention as comprehended within the scope of the appended claims.

What I claim is:

1. A method which comprises providing a printing plate the surface of which has at least one intaglio printing hollow of determinable length, filling only a portion of the length of said hollow with an intaglio printing ink while leaving the remainder of the length of the hollow empty, wiping off said intaglio printing ink from the outer surface of said plate so as to leave on said plate only the ink located in the filled portion of the length of said hollow, coating with a relief printing ink at least the portion of the outer surface of said plate adjoining said remainder of the length of said hollow whereby said intaglio printing ink and the relief printing ink cooperate to form visible indicia, and applying said plate against a support so that said inks are transferred to said support.

2. A method according to claim 1 wherein said coating with a relief printing ink is applied exclusively on the portion of the surface of said plate surrounding said remainder of the length of said hollow.

3. A method according to claim 1 wherein said coating with a relief printing ink is applied both on the portion of the surface of said plate surrounding said remainder of the length of said hollow and on a portion of the surface of said plate surrounding the portion of the length of said hollow that has been filled with an intaglio printing ink.

4. A printing machine which comprises, in combination,

a printing plate having an outer printing surface in which is provided at least one intaglio printing hollow of determinable length,

means for filling only a portion of the length of said hollow with an intaglio printing ink, whereby the remainder of said length is left empty,

means for Wiping off said intaglio printing ink from the outer surface of said plate, whereby ink is left only in said portion of the length of the hollow,

means for coating with a relief printing ink at least the portion of the outer surface of said plate adjoining said rcmainder of the length of said hollow whereby said intaglio printing ink and the relief printing ink cooperate to form visible indicia,

5 and means for applying said printing plate coated with 1,041,934 said inks against a support to be printed. 1,294,720 5. A printing machine according to claim 4 wherein 1,084,617 said relief printing ink coating means are arranged to 1,299,484 apply relief printing ink only on the portion of said plate 5 1,506,144 2,275,062

adjoining said remainder of the length of said hollow.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 8/1911 Wood Wood 101-157 Smith 101151 X Dodge. Lee 2838 Weeks 2839 Lathey 101211 X ROBERT E. PULFREY, Primary Examiner.

WILLIAM F. MCCARTHY, JR., E. S. BURR, Examiners. 5/1895 Smith 101170 10 H. P. EWELL, Assistant Examiner. 

1. A METHOD WHICH COMPRISES PROVIDING A PRINTING PLATE THE SURFACE OF WHICH HAS AT LEAST ONE INTAGLIO PRINTING HOLLOW OF DETERMINABLE LENGTH, FILLING ONLY A PORTION OF THE LENGTH OF SAID HOLLOW WITH AN INTAGLIO PRINTING INK WHILE LEAVING THE REMAINDER OF THE LENGTH OF THE HOLLOW EMPTY, WIPING OFF SAID INTAGLIO PRINTING INK FROM THE OUTER SURFACE OF SAID PLATE SO AS TO LEAVE ON SAID PLATE ONLY THE INK LOCATED IN THE FILED PORTION OF THE LENGTH OF 